For a long time now I have wanted to write a tutorial about buying art
commissions from artists on the internet.

The images here are from an upcoming game about Special Forces and
Monsters!

Eventually I began working with an Artist on the Ghost Guns RPG project.

Sketches and Artist's renderings by Enmanuel Martinez, I asked Enmanuel if I
could show some of the Work In Progress stuff to give people a behind the
scenes view of the process and he agreed.

Originally we started with some Monsters, so lets talk about Monsters. Same
as the last article, posing as part of the image composition is just as
important as getting the rest of the details right. If you don't send pose
references to you artist expect to have to add that direction later on.

So our first Monster was supposed to be a stylized Ghost, I sent some
references and Enmanuel came back with this.

From left to right Sketch 1 was the most dynamic, Sketch 2 looked like
someone startled him but not much else was going on. Sketch 3 looked almost too
human and wasn't what I wanted for this piece, but it did have the echo-y
effect I wanted. I asked Enmanuel to give me a Sketch 1 with the Sketch 3 echo
effect.

The new version of Sketch 1 was what I wanted, I approved it and Enmanuel
went back to finish the details.

The Wraith was the first of the monsters, next we went with something we'll
call the Beast, although we both had a decent Idea of what we wanted, I didn't
send any references or poses for the Beast.

Sketch 1 and 3 are just kind of hanging out, Sketch 2 Enmanuel was going for
kind of a Planet of the Apes kind of thing, but the back legs just weirded me
out. I found some poses and asked for another round of sketches with
adjustments to 1 and 3. Also the no neck thing had to go.

Looking over this, arm and hand poses are much better, having actual necks
is better, but I'm not liking the Horns on Sketch 3. I ask to get rid of the
horns and eyes on Sketch 3. We always imagined the Beast as a blind hunter.

After a long process of kind of favoring Sketch 1, Sketch 3 turns out being
my favorite and Sketch 3 is what we use for the final. It is important to play
around and try new things when you aren't seeing what you want and maybe just
maybe send the artist a couple of poses before he or she starts sketching.

Final Beast art and onto the Zombie art.

Sketch 01 I really like the face, Sketch 2 I really like the pose, Sketch 3
doesn't have much going on. I ask for a version of sketch 2 with Sketch 1's
face.,

Sketch 02 is the one we go with and I think you'll see the final has a lot
more detail.

Zombie final.

After these Zombie, I wanted a Vampire type of character, I sent some
references and got some great sketches back.

Sketch 1 seems to be the one just standing around this time, Sketch 2 is
pretty good, Sketch 3 looks like he's waiting to catch something or start
wrestling someone. I really want to see Sketch 2 with lots of the bright
streaks on his skin.

Sketch 2 with streaks it is.

-All of the images were done in grayscale, none of these are done in color
or rely on color, a lot of the equipment stuff is going to be in Black and
White, likewise Guns don't always need color to show all of their details. The
Black and White motif will also accommodate some of the horror aspect of the
monsters.

I hope this helps some of you out there looking to buy pieces for yourself
or for your own RPG projects.